Life Between Death and Rebirth

Schmidt Number: S-2649

On-line since: 27th October, 2004

IV

Recent Results of Occult Investigation Into Life

Between Death and Rebirth

Vienna, November 3, 1912

It
affords me great pleasure to be with you this evening on the occasion
of my presence here in Vienna, which was necessitated by certain
other circumstances. As this is a special meeting, I would like to
speak about more intimate matters that can only be dealt with in
smaller groups long acquainted with spiritual science.

In occult research one cannot check often enough the facts one has
repeatedly investigated, and about which one has spoken, for they are
facts of the spiritual world that is not easily accessible and
comprehensible to man. There is a constant danger of misinterpreting
in one way or another, and events may be viewed incorrectly. This is
the reason the results obtained must be checked again and again. The
principal events of life in the spiritual world have, of course, been
known for thousands of years, yet it is difficult to describe them. I
am deeply grateful that recently I had the opportunity to concern
myself more intimately again with an important aspect of occultism,
namely, the realm of life between death and a new birth. It is not so
much that new facts come to light, but that one has the possibility
to present things in a more exact and accurate way. So today I would
like to speak of the period that for super-sensible perception is of
the utmost importance, that is, the period between death and rebirth.
I will not deal so much with the period immediately following death,
the kamaloca period, descriptions of which can be found in my
writings, but with the succeeding period, the actual sojourn of man
in the spiritual world between death and rebirth. This description
will be prefaced briefly by the following remarks.

One learns to know the period between death and rebirth either by
initiation or by going through the portal of death. Mostly one does
not take sufficiently seriously the difference that exists between
knowledge acquired in the sense world by means of our senses and
intellect and knowledge acquired of the spiritual world, either
through initiation in a physical body in this life or without this
body when we have gone through the gate of death. In a sense,
everything is reversed in the spiritual world. I will refer to two
characteristics to show how fundamentally different are the spiritual
world and the normal sense world.

Let us consider our existence in the sense world during waking
consciousness from morning until night. The objects we perceive by
means of our eyes and ears come to us. Only in the higher realms of
life, so to speak, in the spheres of knowledge and art, do we have to
exert ourselves to participate in drawing things towards us. Apart
from this, in the rest of outer lie everything from morning until
night that impinges on our senses and our intellect is brought to us.
Wherever we go, in the street, in the daily round of life, every
moment is filled with impressions, and apart from the exceptions
mentioned we make no effort to bring them about. They come about of
their own accord.

It is different as regards what happens through us in the physical
world. Here we have to be active, move from place to place, be on the
go. It is an important characteristic of daily life that what is
presented to our perception comes to us without our activity. However
grotesque it may appear, the opposite is true in the spiritual world.
There one cannot be active, one cannot draw anything towards one by
moving from one place to another. Nor can one bring anything to one
simply by moving a limb — by the movement of a hand, for
example. Above all, for something to happen in the spiritual world it
is essential that there be absolute calmness of soul.

The quieter we are, the more can happen through us in the spiritual
world. We simply cannot say that anything happens in the spiritual
world as a result of hurry and excitement. We need to develop loving
participation in a mood of soul calmness for what is to happen, and
then wait patiently to see how things come to pass. This calmness of
soul, which in the spiritual world is creative, does not quite have
its equal in ordinary physical life. It is similar on higher levels
of earthly existence to the sphere of knowledge and of the arts. Here
we have something analogous. The artist who cannot wait will not be
able to create the highest he is capable of. For this, he needs
patience and inner calmness of soul until the right moment dawns,
until the intuition comes. One who seeks to create according to a
schedule will produce only works of inferior quality. He who seeks to
create, be it the smallest work, prompted by an outer stimulus will
not succeed as well as if he had waited quietly with loving devotion
for the moment of inspiration. We might say for the moment of grace.
The same is true of the spiritual world. In it there is no rush and
excitement but only calmness of soul.

Fundamentally, this must also be the way with the growth of our
movement. Propaganda campaigns and a desire to force spiritual
science on our fellow men are useless. It is best if we can wait
until we meet those who inwardly need to hear about the spirit, who
are drawn to it. We should not nurture longings to bring everyone to
spiritual science. We shall find that the calmer we are, the more
people will come to us, whereas forceful propaganda merely puts
people off. Public lectures are held only in order that what has to
be said should be said and those who wish to receive what is
communicated can do so. Our attitude within our spiritual scientific
movement must be a reflection of the spiritual so that what has to
happen can happen and is awaited with inner silence.

Let us consider an initiate who knew that something was to happen at
a particular time out of the spiritual world. I have often drawn
attention to an important event that had its origin in the spiritual
world but which does not yet reveal itself in a marked way. I refer
to the year 1899, the end of the small Kali Yuga. That year brought a
certain impulse that was to give mankind the possibility of an inner
soul-awakening. In earlier times it was produced by external stimuli
from the spiritual world, usually denoted as chance occurrences.

I would like to relate a particular instance. In the twelfth century
there lived a certain personality named Norbert, who founded an
order. At first he led a worldly, dissolute life. Then one day he was
struck by lightning. Such events are by no means rare in history. A
flash of lightning can have the effect of shaking up the physical and
ether bodies. His whole life was changed. Here we have an example of
how an outer happening is used by the spiritual world to alter the
course of a man's life. Such chance phenomena are not uncommon.
They completely shake up the connection between the physical and
ether bodies and radically transform the individual concerned. That
was the case in this instance. It is not a question of coincidence.
Such events are carefully prepared in the spiritual world so as to
bring about a change in a person. Since the year 1899, however, such
happenings have taken on a more intimate character. They are less
outward and the human soul is deepened more and more inwardly. In
fact, in order to produce such a universal revolution as that of
1899, not only all the powers and beings of the spiritual world had
to cooperate, but also the initiates who lived on earth. They do not
say, “Prepare yourselves.” They do not shout it in
people's ears, but they act in such a way that the impulse
comes from within so that people learn to understand it from within.
Then people remain inwardly calm, concern themselves with such
thoughts, allow them to work within the soul, and wait. The more
quietly such thoughts are carried in the soul, the more strongly such
spiritual events occur. The most important thing is to wait the
moment of grace, to wait for what will happen to us in the spiritual
world.

It is different in regard to the acquisition of knowledge in everyday
life. Here we have to gather things together to work and exert
ourselves in order to obtain it. In the physical world the rose we
find along the wayside gladdens us. This would not happen on the
spiritual plane. There something similar to a rose would not appear
unless we had exerted ourselves to enter a particular realm of the
spirit in order to draw it towards us. In fact, what we have to do
here to act, we do in the spiritual world in order to know, and what
has to happen through us has to be awaited in stillness. Only the
higher activities of man, where the spiritual world weaves into the
physical, afford a reflection of the events in the spiritual world.
That is why it is essential, if one wishes inwardly to understand
what is imparted by spiritual science, to develop two qualities of
soul. Firstly, love for the spiritual world, which leads to an active
grasping of the spirit and is the surest way of enabling us to bring
the things of the spirit towards us, and secondly, inner rest, a
calmness of soul, a silence free from vanity or ambition anxious to
attain results, but capable of receiving grace, able to await
inspiration. In actual cases this patient expectation is not easy,
but there is a thought that can help us to overcome obstacles. It is
difficult to accept because it strikes so deeply against our vanity.
This thought is that in the universal pattern it is of no importance
whether something happens through us or through another person. This
should not deter us from doing everything that has to be done. It
should not prevent us from performing our duty, but it should keep us
from hurrying to and fro. How glad every individual feels that he
is capable, the he can do it. A certain resignation is
necessary for us to feel equally glad when someone else can and does
do something. One should not love something because one has done it
oneself, but love it because it is in the world irrespective of
whether he or someone else has done it. If we repeatedly ponder this
thought it will lead most certainly to selflessness. Such moods of
soul are essential to enter into the spiritual world, not only as an
investigator but also to understand what has been discovered. These
inner attitudes are far more important than visions, although they,
too, have to be present. They are essential because they enable us to
evaluate the visions rightly.

Visions! One need only mention the word and everybody knows what is
meant by it. Actually, the whole of our life after death once
kamaloca is over consists of visions. When the human being has gone
through the gate of death and kamaloca and then enters the actual
spiritual world, he lives in a realm in which it is as if he were
surrounded from all sides by mere visions, but visions that are
mirror-images of reality. In fact we can say that just as we perceive
the physical world by means of colors that the eye conjures forth for
us, and sounds mediated by the ear, we experience the spiritual world
after death by means of visions in which we are enveloped.

Now, as I wish to speak more intimately of these things, I shall have
to use a more descriptive form. Certain things may sound rather
strange, but that is how they reveal themselves to genuine spiritual
investigation.

The kamaloca period unfolds as I have described it in my book,
Theosophy,
but it can be characterized also in a different
way. One may for instance ask, “When a person has gone through
the gate of death, where does he feel himself to be?” One can
answer this question by asking, “Where is man during his
kamaloca period?” This can be expressed spatially in words that
express our physical world. Imagine the space between the earth and
the moon, the spherical space described when the orbit of the moon is
taken as the outermost path away from the earth. Then you have the
realm in which man, loosened from the earth, dwells during the
kamaloca period.

It may sound strange, but when the kamaloca period has been
completed, a human being leaves this sphere and enters the actual
celestial world. Also in this connection, accurate and genuine
investigation shows that things are reversed in relation to the
physical plane. Here we are bound outwardly to the earth, surrounded
by the physical world and separated form the heavenly spheres. After
death the earth is separated from us and we are united with the
heavenly spheres. As long as we dwell within the Moon sphere we are
in kamaloca, which means that we are still longing to be connected
with the earth. We proceed beyond it when we have learned through
life in kamaloca to forego passions and longings. The sojourn in the
spiritual world must be imagined quite differently from what is
customary on earth. There we are spread out in space, we feel
ourselves in the whole of space. That is why the experience, be it of
an initiate or of a person after death, is one of feeling oneself
spread out in space, expanding after death (or as an initiate) and
being limited by the Moon orbit as by a skin. It is like this and it
is of no avail to use words our contemporaries would more easily
forgive because by doing so one would not express the facts more
correctly. In public lectures such shocking things have to be left
out, but for those who have concerned themselves with spiritual
science for a longer time it is best to say things plainly.

After the life in kamaloca we grow further out into space. This will
depend on certain qualities that we have acquired previously on the
earth. A long span of our evolution after death, and our ability to
expand to the next sphere, is determined by the moral attitude, the
ethical concepts and feelings we developed on earth. A person who has
developed qualities of compassion and love — qualities that are
usually termed moral — lives into the next sphere so that he
becomes acquainted with the beings of that sphere. A man who brings a
lack of morality into this realm dwells in it like a hermit. It may
be best characterized by saying that morality prepared for us living
socially together in the spiritual world. We are condemned to a
fearful loneliness, filled with a continual longing to get to know
others without being able to do so, as a result of a lack of morality
in the physical world of the heart as well as of the mind and will.
Either as a hermit or as a sociable being who is a blessing in the
spiritual world, do we dwell in this second sphere known in occultism
as that of Mercury. Today in ordinary astronomy this is known as the
Venus sphere. As has often been mentioned, the names have been
reversed.

Now man's being expands up to the orbits of the morning and the
evening stars, whereas previously it expanded only to the Moon.
Something strange happens at this point. Until the Moon sphere we are
still involved in earthly matters is not entirely severed. We still
know what we have done on the earth, what we have thought. Just as
here we can remember, so we know there. But recollection may be
painful! On earth if we have done a person some injustice or have not
loved him as much as we should, we can make up for these feelings. We
can go to him and put things right. This is no longer possible from
the Mercury sphere onward. We behold the relationships in
recollection. They remain but we cannot alter them.

Let us assume that a person has died before us. According to the
earthly connection we should have loved him, but did not do so as
much as we should have done. We meet him again since we were related
to him previously because after death we do in fact encounter all the
people with whom we were connected. To begin with, this cannot be
altered. We reproach ourselves with not having loved him enough, but
we are incapable of changing our soul-disposition so as to love him
more. What has been established on the earth remains. We cannot alter
it. These facts relating to the correct, unchangeable perception of
love made a strong impression on me during my recent investigations
this summer. Much comes to light that eludes most people. I wanted to
convey this to you.

One learns to know these strange facts by means of spiritual
cognition. One lives in the Mercury sphere in former relationships
with people, and they cannot be altered. One looks back and unfolds
what one has already developed.

Although I have concerned myself a great deal with Homer, yet a
particular passage became fully clear only during recent occult
investigations when the facts described came powerfully to me. It is
the passage in which Homer calls the realm after death, “the
land of the shades where nothing can change.” It can be
understood by the intellect but what the poet seeks to convey about
the spiritual world, how he speaks as a prophet, that one only learns
to know when the corresponding discovery has been made by means of
spiritual research. This is true of every genuine artist. He need not
understand with his everyday consciousness what comes to him in
inspiration. What humanity has received through its artists in the
course of centuries will not fade because of the spreading of our
spiritual movement. On the contrary, art will be deepened and mankind
will value all the more its true artists when, as a result of occult
investigation, the spiritual realm is reached — the realm out
of which the artist has drawn his inspiration. Of course, those who
at one time or another have been regarded as important artists but
are not truly great will not be singled out. Passing greatness will
be recognized for what it is. It contains no inspiration from the
spiritual world.

The next sphere is termed the Venus sphere in occultism. We now
expand our being up to Mercury, which is known as the occult Venus.
In this sphere the human being again is strongly influenced by what
he brings. He who has something to bring becomes a social being, and
he who has nothing to give is condemned to loneliness. A lack of
religious inclination is dreadfully painful. The more religious the
disposition of soul we have acquired, the more social we become in
this sphere. People who lack religious inclination cut themselves
off. They cannot move beyond a sheath or shell that surrounds them.
Nevertheless, we get to know friends who are hermits, but we cannot
reach them. We continually feel as if we have to break through a
shell but are incapable of doing so. In the Venus sphere, if we have
no religious inwardness, it is as if we were to freeze up.

This is followed by a sphere in which, however strange it may appear,
the human being, and this is so for everyone after death, expands up
to the Sun. In the not too distant future different concepts will be
held about the heavenly bodies from those adhered to by astronomy
today. We are connected with the Sun. There is a period between death
and rebirth when we become Sun beings. But now something further is
necessary. In the first sphere we need moral inclination and in the
Venus sphere, a religious life. In the Sun sphere it is essential
that we truly know the nature and being of the Sun spirits and above
all, the ruling Sun Spirit, the Christ, and that we made a connection
with Him on earth.

When mankind still possessed an ancient clairvoyance, this, with the
Christ connection, was established by living into the divine grace of
the past. This has vanished and the Mystery of Golgotha, prepared by
the Old Testament, was there to bring an understanding of the Sun
Being to man. Since the Mystery of Golgotha mankind has naively
endeavored to draw towards the Christ. Today this no longer suffices.
In our time spiritual science must bring an understanding of the Sun
Being to the world. It was clearly understood for the first time
during the Middle Ages when the Grail Saga found its deeper origin in
Europe. Through the understanding given by means of spiritual science
what was brought by the lofty Sun Spirit, by the Christ, the Christ
Who came down and through the Mystery of Golgotha has become the
Spirit of the earth will be retrieved.

The impulse given by the Mystery of Golgotha is destined through
spiritual science to unite all religious creeds in peace over the
whole earth. It remains the basic challenge of spiritual science to
treat all religions with equal attention without giving preference to
any of them for outer reasons. Because we place the Mystery of
Golgotha at the fulcrum of world evolution, our movement is accused
of giving a preference to the Christian religion. Yet this accusation
is quite unjustified. Let us understand how matters really stand with
such accusations. If a Buddhist or Brahman were to accuse us of this
we would say, “Is the only issue what is to be found in sacred
writings? Providing one does not reject a religion, is what is not to
be found in its books to the detriment of a religion? Cannot every
Buddhist accept the Copernican system and yet remain a Buddhist?”
To be able to do so is a sign of progress for humanity at large. So
is the knowledge that the Mystery of Golgotha stands in the center of
the evolution of the world, irrespective of whether it is mentioned
in ancient writings or not.

If we understand the Mystery of Golgotha, and realize what happened
there, then in the Sun sphere we become sociable spirits. As soon as
we have gone beyond the Moon sphere, we are spiritually surrounded by
visions. On encountering a deceased friend after death we meet him in
the form of a vision, but he dwells in this reality. They are
visions, nevertheless, built up on the basis of recollections of what
we have done on earth.

Later, beyond the Moon sphere, this is still the case but now the
spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies illumine us. It is as if
the Sun rose and irradiated the clouds in the Sun sphere. Just as we
only learn to know the spiritual hierarchies in the Mercury sphere if
we have a religious inclination, so in the Sun sphere we must be
permeated by a Jehovah-Christian mood of soul. The outer spiritual
beings approach us. Again something remarkable occurs, confirmed by
objective occult research. Beyond the Moon the human being is like a
cloud woven out of spirit, and when he enters the Mercury sphere, he
is illumined by spiritual beings. That is why the Greeks called
Mercury the messenger of the Gods. In this sphere lofty spiritual
beings illumine man. We gather mighty impressions when we unfold out
of the realm of occult investigation what has been given to humanity
in the form of art and mythology.

So, Christ-filled, we live into the Sun sphere. As we proceed we
enter into a realm where the Sun is now below us, as previously was
the earth. We look back towards the Sun, and this is the beginning of
something strange. We become aware that we have to recognize yet
another being, the spirit of Lucifer.

The nature of Lucifer cannot be rightly evaluated after death unless
we have previously done so by means of spiritual science or
initiation. It is only when we arrive beyond the Sun sphere that we
recognize him as he was before he became Lucifer, when he was still a
brother of Christ. Lucifer changed only in the course of time because
he remained behind and severed himself from the stream of cosmic
progress. His harmful influence does not extend beyond the Sun
sphere. Above this there is still another sphere where Lucifer can
unfold his activity as it was before the severance. He does not
unfold anything harmful there, and if we have united ourselves
rightly with the Mystery of Golgotha, we journey onward led by Christ
and are rightly received by Lucifer into yet further spheres of the
universe. The name Lucifer was correctly chosen, as indeed names were
wisely given in olden times. The Sun is below us and so is the light
of the Sun. Now we need a new light-bearer who illumines our path
into the universe.

Thus, we arrive in the Mars sphere. As long as we dwelt below the
Sun, we gazed towards the Sun. The Sun is now below us, and we look
out into the widths of universal space. We experience the widths of
universal space through what is often referred to but little
understood as the harmony of the spheres, a kind of spiritual music.
The visions in which we are enveloped hold less and less significance
for us. Increasingly what we hear spiritually grows meaningful. The
heavenly bodies do not appear as they do in earthly astronomy that
measures their relative speeds. In fact, the faster or slower
sounding together produces the tones of the music of the spheres.
Inwardly the human being feels increasingly that only what he has
received of the spirit on earth remains for him in this sphere. This
enables him to make the acquaintance of the beings of this sphere and
retain his sociability. People who cut themselves off from the
spiritual nowadays cannot enter the spiritual world in spite of their
moral inclination and religious disposition. Nothing can be done
about it, although it is of course possible that such people draw
near to the spirit in the next incarnation.

Without exception all materialistically inclined people become
hermits once they have gone beyond the Sun into the Mars sphere. It
may sound foolish, yet it is true that the Monistic Union will not
survive once its adherents have reached the Sun sphere because, as
each of them is a hermit, they cannot possibly meet.

A person who has acquired spiritual understanding on earth will have
yet another experience on Mars. As we are speaking more intimately
today, I shall relate it. The question can be put within our own
world conception that we develop as spiritual science in the western
world. What has happened to Buddha since his last earthly
incarnation? I have mentioned this on previous occasions. Buddha
lived as Gautama during his last incarnation six hundred years B.C.
If you have studied my lectures carefully you will recall that he has
worked since on another occasion when he did not incarnate as Buddha,
but only worked spiritually at the birth of the Luke Christ-child.
Spiritually he sent his influence from higher spheres unto the earth.
But where is he? In Sweden at Norrköping I drew attention to yet
another influence of the Buddha on the earth. During the eighth
century at a Mystery Center in Europe on the Black Sea, Buddha lived
spiritually in one of his disciples. This disciple was later to
become Francis of Assisi. So Francis of Assisi was in his previous
incarnation a pupil of Buddha and absorbed all the qualities
necessary for him to work later in the extraordinary way he did. In
many respects his followers cannot be distinguished from those of
Buddha, except that the ones were disciples of Buddha and others were
Christian. This was due to the fact that in his previous incarnation
he was a pupil of Buddha, of the spiritual Buddha. But where is
the actual Buddha, the one who lived as Gautama? He became for
Mars what Christ has become for the earth. He accomplished a kind of
Mystery of Golgotha for Mars and brought about the extraordinary
redemption of the Mars inhabitants. He dwells there among them. His
earthly life was the right preparation in order to redeem the Mars
inhabitants, but his redeeming deed was not quite like the Mystery of
Golgotha. It was somewhat different.

Spiritually, man lives in the Mars sphere as indicated. Then he
proceeds further and lives into the Jupiter sphere. His connection
with the earth, which up until now still continued slightly, has
become quite meaningless. The Sun still has a limited influence on
him, but now the Cosmos begins to work powerfully upon him.
Everything is now working from outside, and man receives cosmic
influences. The entire Cosmos works through the harmony of the
spheres, which assumes even other forms the further we investigate
life between death and rebirth. It is not easy to characterize the
change that occurs in the harmony of the spheres. As it cannot be
expressed in words, we may use an analogy. The harmony of the spheres
transforms itself in the passage from Mars to Jupiter as orchestral
music would change into choral music. Jupiter as orchestral music
would change into choral music. It becomes increasingly tone, filled
with meaning, expressive of its actual being. The harmony of the
spheres receives content as we ascend into the sphere of Jupiter, and
in the Saturn sphere full content is bestowed upon it as the
expression of the Cosmic Word out of which everything has been
created and which is found in the Gospel of St. John, “In the
beginning was the Word.” In this Word cosmic order and cosmic
wisdom sound forth.

Now the one who is prepared proceeds into other spheres — the
spiritual person farther, the less spiritual not so far — but
he comes into quite a different condition from the previous one. One
might characterize it thus. Beyond Saturn a spiritual sleep beings,
whereas during the previous stages one was spiritually awake. From
now onward consciousness is dimmed, man dwells in a benumbed
condition that makes it possible for him to undergo still other
experiences. Just as in sleep we do away with tiredness and gather
new forces, so as a result of the dimming of consciousness, when we
have become a fully expanded spatial sphere, spiritual forces stream
in from the cosmos. First we have sensed it, then we have heard it as
a universal orchestra. Then it has sung forth and we have perceived
it as the Word. Then we fall asleep and it penetrates us. During this
period we again travel through all the spheres, but with a dimmed
consciousness. Our consciousness becomes ever dimmer. We now
contract, quickly or slowly according to our karma, and during this
process of contraction we come one more under the influence of the
forces emanating from the Sun system. We journey back from sphere to
sphere through the cosmos. Now we are not sensitive to influence from
the Moon sphere. We proceed, unaffected, unhampered, as it were, and
continue to contract until we unite ourselves with the small human
germ that goes through its development before birth.

Unless physiology and embryology receive their facts from occult
investigation, they cannot contain the truth, for the embryo is a
reflection of the vast cosmos. The whole cosmos is carried within it.
The human being carries as a potential power within him what happens
physically between conception and birth, and also what he undergoes
during the period of cosmic sleep.

Here we touch upon a wonderful mystery. It actually only has been
indicated or portrayed in our time by artists. In the future it will
be understood better. We shall come to experience what really lives
in the Tristan story, in the Tristan mood. We shall understand that
the whole cosmos streams into the love of Tristan and Isolde, and we
shall recognize it truly as the course of man's development
between death and rebirth. What has been gathered from the cosmos,
from Saturn, influences lovers who are brought together. Many things
are turned into cosmic events. They should not be analyzed
intellectually, but we should experience what connects man truly to
the whole cosmos. That is why spiritual science will certainly
succeed in developing a new sense of devotion, a true religion in
people, because it will be understood that often the smallest things
have their origin in the cosmos. We learn rightly and wisely to
relate what lives in the human breast to its origin when we consider
its connection with the cosmos. Thus, from spiritual science an
impulse can pour out for the whole of life, for the whole of mankind,
towards a really new attitude that has to come. Artists have prepared
it, but a true understanding must be created first through a
spiritual inclination.

I wanted to convey these indications on the basis of renewed,
intimate investigations of the life of man between death and rebirth.
There is nothing in spiritual science that will not also move us in
our deepest feelings. When rightly understood nothing remains a mere
abstract representation. The flower we behold gives more joy to use
than when the botanist tears it to shreds. The far distant starry
world can evoke a vague sensing in us, but the reality only dawns
when we are able to ascend into the heavenly spheres with our soul.
We rob the plant by our dissection, but not the starry world when we
ascent beyond the plant and recognize how the spirit is related to
it.

Kant made the remarkable utterance of a man who understands morality
in a one-sided way. Two things moved him deeply — the starry
heavens above and the moral law within. Both are really the same. We
only gather them into us out of heavenly realms. If we are born with
a moral inclination, it means that on the return journey during the
condition of sleep the Mercury sphere was able to bestow much upon
us. It was the Venus sphere, if we are endowed with religious
feelings. As every morning on earth we awaken strengthened and
refreshed with new forces, so we are strengthened by the forces given
by the cosmos, and we receive them in accordance with our karma. The
cosmos can bestow forces that are predispositions from birth inasmuch
as karma will allow.

Life between death and rebirth falls into two parts. To begin with it
is unalterable. We ascend, the beings approach us. We enter into a
condition of sleep and then change can occur. The forces now enter
with which we are born. Considering the evolution of man in this way,
we see that the human being after death first lives in a world of
visions. He only learns to recognize later what he really is as a
soul-spiritual being. Beings approach us from outside and they
illumine us as the golden light of the morning illuminates the things
of the outer world. Thus we ascend and the spiritual world penetrates
into us. We do not live into the spiritual world from outside until
we have become mature enough to experience what we are in our
visionary world, until we encounter the beings of the spiritual world
who approach us from all sides like rays.

Transfer yourself into the spiritual world as if you could behold it.
There a man emerges, in the form of a visionary cloud, as he truly
is. Then the beings can approach and illumine him from outside. We
cannot see the rose when it is dark. We switch on the light and
because the light falls on the rose we can see it as it really is. So
it is when the human being ascends into the spiritual world. The
light of spiritual beings draws near to him. But there is one moment
when he is clearly visible, illumined by the light of the Hierarchies
so that he reflects back the whole of the outer world. The entire
cosmos now appears as if reflected by man. You can imagine the
process. First you live on as a cloud that is not sufficiently
illumined, then you ray back the light of the cosmos and then you
dissolve. There is a moment when man reflects back the cosmic light.
Up to this point he can ascend. Dante says in his Divine Comedy
that in a particular part of the spiritual world one beholds God as
man. This is to be taken literally, otherwise it would not make any
sense at all. One can of course accept it as a beautiful thought, as
aesthetes do, and fail to understand its inner content. This is again
an instance where we find the spiritual world mirrored in the works
of great artists and poets. This is also the case with the great
musicians of more recent times, in a Beethoven, a Wagner and
Bruckner. It can happen with one as it did with me a few days ago,
when I had to resist a certain piece of knowledge because it was too
astonishing.

In Florence we find the Medici Chapel where Michelangelo created two
memorial statues to the Medici and four allegorical figures
representing “Day” and “Night,” “Dawn”
and “Dusk.” One easily speaks about a cold allegory, but
when one looks at these four figures they appear anything but a cold
allegory. One of the figures represents “Night.”
Actually, research in this domain is not particularly enlightened,
for you will find it mentioned everywhere that of the two Medici
statues depicting Lorenzo and Giuliano, Lorenzo is the thinker. But
occult investigation has confirmed that the opposite is true. The one
said to be Lorenzo by art historians is Giuliano, and vice versa.

This can be proved historically with reference to the natures of the
two personalities. The statues rest on pedestals, and it is likely
that in the course of time they have been interchanged. But this is
not really what I wanted to say. I only draw your attention to this
to show that in this respect outer research misses the mark!

The figure “Night” can be made the object of a fine
artistic study. The gesture, the position of the resting body with
the head supported by the hand, the arm placed on the leg — in
fact the whole arrangement of the figure can be studied artistically.
We can sum it up by saying that if one wished to portray the human
etheric body in its full activity, then one could only represent it
in the form of this figure. That is the outer gesture expressing a
human being at rest. When man sleeps, the etheric body is most
active. In the figure of “Night” Michelangelo has created
the corresponding position. This reclining figure represents the most
expressive portrayal of the active etheric or life body.

Now let us go over to “Day” which lies on the opposite
side. This represents the most perfect expression of the ego; the
figure “Dawn,” of the astral body; “Twilight,”
of the physical body. These are not allegories, but truths taken from
life, immortalized with remarkable artistic penetration. I kept away
from this knowledge, but the more accurately I studied it, the
clearer it became. I am no longer astonished at the legend that
originated in Florence at the time. It tells that Michelangelo had
power over “Night” and when he was alone with her in the
Chapel she would stand up and walk about. As she represents the
etheric body, it is not surprising. I only mention this in order to
show how clear and intelligible everything becomes the more we view
it from the aspect of occultism.

The greatest contribution to the development of spiritual life and
culture will be accomplished when human beings meet in such a way
that each presupposes and then senses the occultly hidden in the
other. Then will the right relationship be established from man to
man, and love will permeate the soul in a truly human way. Man will
meet man in such a way that one will sense the sacred mystery of the
other. It is only in such a relationship that the right feelings of
love can be cultivated.

Spiritual science will not have to stress continually the outer
cultivation of general human love, but it will receive by way of
genuine knowledge the power of love in the soul of man.